West, Mae, 1892–1980, American stage and movie comedienne, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. The unparalleled mistress of double entendre, West began in burlesque and continued in vaudeville, stage, and films, making a career of self-admiration and treating sex with broad humor. As a result, she was constantly battling against the Production Code (see motion pictures motion pictures, movie-making as an art and an industry, including its production techniques, its creative artists, and the distribution and exhibition of its products (see also motion picture photography ; Motion Picture Cameras under camera ).
..... Click the link for more information. ). Many of her one-liners, such as "Come up and see me sometime," have become classics. Her plays include Sex (1926) and Diamond Lil (1928). Among her films are She Done Him Wrong (1933) and My Little Chickadee (1940).

Bibliography

See her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It (1959) and The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West (1967); biographies by E. W. Leider (1997) and S. Louvish (2006).

West, Mae

(born Aug. 17, 1893, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died Nov. 22, 1980, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. film actress. She performed with a Brooklyn stock company c. 1901, and by 1907 she had become a performer on the national vaudeville circuit. She made her Broadway debut as a singer and dancer in 1911. In 1926 she began to write, produce, and star in her own Broadway plays, including the sensation-creating Sex (1926), Diamond Lil (1928), and The Constant Sinner (1931), productions that mired her in legal battles. Her frank sensuality, regal postures, and suggestive wisecracks became her trademarks in popular movies such as I'm No Angel (1933), She Done Him Wrong (1933), Belle of the Nineties (1934), and My Little Chickadee (1940). In World War II, Allied soldiers called their inflatable life jackets “Mae Wests” in honour of her hourglass figure. Her films were revived in the 1960s, and she appeared in Myra Breckenridge (1970) and Sextette (1979).

West, Mae (1893–1980) actress; born in Brooklyn, N.Y. Starting in vaudeville, she appeared on Broadway (1911–28) before becoming a film star in the 1930s. She wrote much of her own dialogue, replete with sexual innuendo. A mistress of comic timing, she was a sultry siren who befuddled her co-stars—Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong and W. C. Fields in My Little Chickadee. The "Mae West" life-jacket is named after her buxom figure.

West, Mae

(1892–1980) voluptuous American leading lady; archetypal sex symbol. [Am. Cinema: Halliwell, 759–760]

See : Buxomness

West, Mae

(1892–1980) actress personified as a vamp; known for her famous line, “Come up and see me some time.” [Am. Cinema: Halliwell, 759]

See : Flirtatiousness